I recently found an amazing (and I don't use that word lightly) resource from Google that I think is completely under-used and seriously under-marketed. This resource is called Google Talks and it contains over 170 fascinating lectures, given to the very lucky and privileged Google staff, most around 1 hour long.

I chanced upon this archive of knowledge while researching a new article about psychics (look for it soon, it's called "I see Dumb People.") Anyway, the first person I thought of was James Randi, noted magician and "debunker" of people who claim to have super-natural powers. The best video I found in my search came from a place on YouTube called authors@google. I watched it, spellbound, James Randi at 78 years old is a terrific, vibrant speaker with a great sense of humor. You can view his video below.

But then I also discovered talks from musicians@google, and women@google. So I did a little digging and found a whole repository of in-depth, wonderful lectures from some of the finest minds in writing, news, acting, politics, science, cuisine, music and more. Here's just a short list of the people who have given talks for those Google folks I envy more every day.

Now, these are just a few of the people I was interested in listening to. But I urge you, when you have an hour to kill, to pop over to Google Talks at You Tube and treat yourself to a perk of the job that Google employees get. You'll be glad you did.

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I'm the person seen at the start of the James Randi video doing his introduction. Glad you enjoyed the talk, and thanks for pointing out the general @Google videos. It really is a great program, with visitors to a number of Google offices giving talks and interacting with Googlers. I'm no longer at Google, and one of the things I'm missing most is the opportunity to get to invite interesting people to do these talks.

I'm the person seen at the start of the James Randi video doing his introduction. Glad you enjoyed the talk, and thanks for pointing out the general @Google videos. It really is a great program, with visitors to a number of Google offices giving talks and interacting with Googlers. I'm no longer at Google, and one of the things I'm missing most is the opportunity to get to invite interesting people to do these talks.